Hilton San Diego Resort | Mission Bay | Karen + Zac’s Wedding Photography | ABM Photography Blog

Karen and Zac met at a friend’s wedding in San Diego on September 2, 2012. Funny side story to that– the bride and groom of this wedding have been friends of Karen’s since the beginning of high school. The groom (Richard) and Karen both went to CU Boulder after high school, which is also where Zach went for undergrad. Richard became friends with Zach during freshmen year and somehow neither Karen nor Zach met each other until the actual wedding day. Needless to say these two really liked each other and started dating after their friends wedding. Zach asked for Karen’s hand in marriage in such an awesome way… May 18, 2018: Zach’s family had flown out for his graduation weekend from Cornell Tech. That Friday, Zach had to give his final pitch on a start-up he created in front of 800 people. Unbeknownst to Karen, Zach was planning a huge surprise proposal that exact same day. Zach had surprised Karen with a salon appointment to get her hair done, that morning, as a “thank you” for being supportive throughout the crazy year at Cornell Tech. After his final pitch at the campus, Zach and Karen went back to their apartment to change for dinner. Before heading out of their building for dinner, Zach asked to go on the rooftop to check it out and make sure “the construction was complete” in case his father wanted to do graduation photos there the next day. Karen didn’t think twice at the request and followed him to the roof.

When they got to the rooftop, Zach led Karen to an area filled with rose petals and a note for her. Before reaching this point, they had passed by one of their maintenance workers who was pretending to fix the door. While Karen read the heartfelt note, Zach got down on his knee, patiently waiting for Karen to turn around and realize what was going on. Without even waiting for him to pop the question, Karen immediately said YES! Only after then, did she realize that the maintenance worker was in on it, and took photos of the whole proposal.

Afterwards, Zach was still pretending that they had a dinner to get too with his family, but before that they had one more stop to make— to their friend’s Brittany and Weston’s condo. He made her believe that they wanted to give them an engagement gift. When they got to the condo, Zach led Karen to the event space of the building, where some of their closest friends and families waited for them— SURPRISE ENGAGEMENT PARTY! To top it all off, Zach had Karen’s parents and brother fly out for the weekend, and surprise her there. How sweet and thoughtful is that!! Way to go Zac!